‘He is in the Empress’s chambers,’ said Haraldr. ‘The purple-born and Maria are trying to steady him.’ Haraldr again pounded his shield with his axe and glared at Ulfr. ‘Get our Emperor up here, Centurion, if you must carry him over your back. I’ll tell him myself about his uncle’s defection. And then I am going to make him stay here and watch his fate sail towards him.’
The Emperor followed Ulfr up the stairs a quarter of an hour later. Michael wore a purple scaramangium but no other insignia of his office. His face was flushed but his dark eyes were blank, as if his soul had fled, leaving only its shell to confront fate. ‘Majesty,’ said Haraldr, trying to conceal the disgust he felt, ‘I am concerned about the Nobilissimus.’
Michael’s eyes darted from side to side. ‘He is – working on something,’ said the Emperor, his words coming in rapid bursts. ‘He – has a plan.’ Suddenly Michael fell to his knees. ‘Hetairarch!’ he shrieked, his hands clasped before his hysterical face, ‘he has left me!’ Michael clutched Haraldr’s legs. ‘I am lost, Hetairarch. Hetairarch, swear to me you will not let me dies. Swear to me . . .’ He rubbed his nose against Haraldr’s boots. ‘If there is mercy in you, swear it to me.’
Haraldr could only feel pity. He remembered how Jarl Rognvald had both literally and spiritually lifted him up after Stiklestad. ‘Majesty, Majesty,’ said Haraldr as he lifted the sobbing Emperor to his feet. ‘You had courage once. I saw the proof of that courage pounded into your armour that day near Antioch. Today you will find that courage again.’
Michael made a worthy effort to draw himself together. ‘You are right, of course, Hetairarch.’ He looked out to sea resolutely. ‘I hope this – outburst will not – prejudice your loyalty. You and your men are all I have.’
‘Majesty,’ said Haraldr, ‘I swear by all that is sacred to me that as long as I remain in Rome, I will defend your life with my own.’
‘Thank you, Hetairarch.’ Michael’s eyes teared, and he looked down at his purple boots. Ulfr motioned to get Haraldr’s attention and pointed to the neck of the Bosporus, to the north. Haraldr left the Emperor and walked round the cupola to get a better look.
The masts were clearly visible on the horizon. ‘Joannes and his Senators,’ whispered Ulfr. ‘I think I can make out the Imperial Trireme--’ Ulfr stopped as both he and Haraldr saw the activity along the portico-lined avenue that ran between the Hall of Nineteen Couches and the Sigma, the principal north-south axis of the palace complex. Preceded by gold-armoured officers mounted on white horses, the units of the Imperial Taghmata were moving into position.
The next hour was excruciating. The Taghmatic units surrounded the Gynaeceum while Joannes’s flotilla moved steadily south. The Senators’ galleys steered into the Golden Horn to make their anchorage at Platea Harbour, while the Imperial Trireme bearing Joannes sailed conspicuously alone around the tip of Byzantium, heading well past the city so that the populace would have time to watch as the imposing, sea-going fortress turned back to the north and came head in to the Bucoleon Harbour. Somehow Michael was able to watch it all without another breakdown, and Haraldr was touched by his composure. It was no easy thing for a man to march with his head up into battle after he had already soiled his breeches in front of his comrades.
The Imperial Trireme trailed white wake and the three rows of oars dipped and rose inexorably; from a distance the armoured marines looked like granulated silver spilled on the deck. Haraldr watched as the swift-moving craft plunged like an elaborate spearhead directly towards the Bucoleon quays just below them to the south. Then something at the periphery of his vision distracted him. Another wake streaked the finely silvered water; a ship had emerged from the Harbour of Contoscali, a very small U-shaped bay about five bowshots west of the Bucoleon.
‘What is it?’ asked Ulfr.
‘A khelandia of the pamphyloi class. Imperial Fleet,’ said Haraldr. The pamphyloi were half the size of dhromons but still lethally armed and faster and more manoeuvrable. The single tier of oars fluttered in rapid cadence and the narrow-beamed vessel moved quickly on an intercept course with the Imperial Trireme; as Haraldr judged it, the two craft would make contact just a bowshot beyond the Bucoleon breakwater.
‘A curious rendezvous for an escort vessel,’ said Ulfr, pointing to where the wakes would converge. Haraldr looked at Ulfr and shook his head. It was obviously a desperate rendezvous for a Nobilissimus intent on begging for his life.
Michael pointed at the racing khelandia with a limp finger and quaking arm. ‘Uncle is on that ship, isn’t he?’ he said in a voice so low that had there been wind, his words would have been lost.
‘Signal him to return to his anchorage!’ shouted the Droungarios of the Imperial Fleet. He stood at the stern of the Imperial Trireme, high above the hissing sea, atop a cottage-size stern-castle that resembled a small palace in its ornate gold fittings. The Droungarios was a slight man; no doubt he had been tough and wiry in his youth, but now that he was well past seventy, shrivelled and stooped, his authority was in his rough, wine-pickled voice and insignia of rank rather than his physical presence. His command soon produced a sequence of flags along the yard-arm of the trireme’s central mast.
‘He’s not responding!’ shouted one of the Droungarios’s attendant komes, shortly after the flags had been raised.
The Orphanotrophus Joannes appeared at the Droungarios’s side and leaned against the gilded railing. ‘Let him come on,’ Joannes said, his face struggling with a grin. The Droungarios looked at him in surprise. ‘See that man,’ he said, pointing to a purple-clad figure at the bow of the khelandia, now only two stades distant. ‘Those are the robes of the Nobilissimus. My brother has come to negotiate the terms of his nephew’s abdication.’
The ships slowed as they reached hailing distance, and the komes at the bow of the khelandia asked permission to come alongside. ‘Ship port oars!’ commanded the Droungarios. The two craft swung around, and crews threw rope bumpers over the sides. The khelandia thudded alongside the trireme and crewmen on the deck scrambled to secure mooring ropes. The Droungarios looked down at the komes in command of the khelandia; the komes was a short man with a chest so massively powerful that his silver breastplate looked like an enormous kettle. He had a short dark beard, a sun-blackened face and flint-hard grey eyes. ‘What is that man’s name?’ the Droungarios whispered to his aide. The Droungarios had more than two hundred komes, each in command of anywhere from one to four vessels, beneath him; he vaguely recalled having given this man a reward for some role he had played in a battle off Italia.
‘Moschus, Droungarios. John Moschus. The hero of Taranto.’
‘Find out what he is about.’ The Droungarios shook his head. Hero . . . Taranto . . .
Moschus walked to the stern of his vessel and shouted up at the Droungarios. ‘I would like to come aboard, sir, and negotiate for the safe transfer of the Nobilissimus to your flagship. I believe it is in the interest of the Imperial Navy . . .’
‘You presume what is in the interest of the Imperial Navy, Komes!’ shouted the Droungarios angrily. This so-called hero would soon be pulling an oar on an ousiai.
‘Let us play this out,’ countermanded Joannes. It amused him to think that Constantine was already concerned about his immediate safety. In Neorion he would wish that he had met with a quick death out here.
The Droungarios, followed by his aides, scuttled down the stairs to the deck to avoid having to deal with a potentially insubordinate officer in front of the all-conquering Orphanotrophus Joannes. It wouldn’t do to have a man like that perceive weakness in his commanders. ‘Komes Moschus!’ the Droungarios shouted, his face livid, ‘come aboard and explain your treason!’